


Tradition: 2016, 2017, 2018

by marginaliana



Series: a ficlet for every GT episode [2]
Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, The Grand Tour: s01 e03, but I guess we all kind of need that right now, the schmoopiest schmoop that ever schmooped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8789404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: They started it in Italy... (TGS advent prompt: tradition)





	

2016  
They started it in Italy, when they'd fished themselves out of the canal in Venice and were stood shivering and dripping onto the cobblestones, and James let himself lean over and say, "So are you taking me on a proper holiday after this or not?"

Jeremy started, turned to look at him with surprise scrawled across his face. James braced himself for something derisive and/or for getting shoved back into the canal. It was a risk, putting himself out there like this – but Jeremy had planned this shoot, had set the two of them up for the race and the dinner and the opera and the constant attempts to sneak away from Hammond so that they could have some alone time. Even if the alone time inevitably involved cameras. James didn't think it was too much of a stretch to read something into that, and anyway he was tired of wondering.

It seemed like he waited for ages, but then Jeremy's expression bloomed into hopefulness and he said, "I'll book the hotel for another couple of nights, then?"

"Yeah, go on," James said, and later after Hammond and the film crew had gone they stayed another three days, some of it spent wandering various places in the city (drinking expensive wine and talking bollocks about Renaissance paintings) and some of it spent in the spa tub of Jeremy's hotel suite (having spectacular sex). It was just what James needed after several days of listening to Hammond's stupid Dodge, even if he _had_ known the plan from the beginning. He didn't know if it would last when they got home, and they didn't talk about it – but he rather thought it would, given the look Jeremy wore all three days, like he was happy but he didn't quite know how it had happened.

2017  
The following summer they holidayed again, this time in the French countryside after a film shoot there. France had birds enough for Jeremy and sunshine enough for James and expensive wine enough for the both of them. There was a piano in the sitting room of the cottage that Jeremy had rented and James played sometimes after dinner, long intense pieces that he often didn't find time for at home. Jeremy watched him from the sofa, eyes hooded, and then afterwards they went to bed and made love with the windows open, gasping and murmuring absurd endearments to each other. 

At home it was always sneaking around, always finding ways to disguise how much time they spent together. It was closed windows, lights off, biting back the groans that wanted to spill from his throat. It was a constant worry of exposure, constant fear of the media circus that would result. They'd taken reasonable precautions here, too – the cottage was in Jeremy's name, and he'd handled the food shopping by himself so that James wasn't seen in the village. But it was remote enough that they didn't have to worry hour by hour the way they'd become used to.

And here, stretched out on the lounge in the garden with his feet in Jeremy's lap and the sun warm on his face, James found himself wondering if discovery would really be as bad as all that. All right, yes, it would be a massive shitshow. But it might be worth it just so that they could have this more than just once a year.

2018  
They'd solved the discovery problem, or at least postponed it, by outing themselves on twitter and then turning their phones off entirely and disappearing onto a remote island in Indonesia. It was only a few acres, mostly covered in palm trees with a short stretch of beach along the far edge. A small hut had been put up under the trees, the inside just big enough for a king size bed, a kitchenette, and a toilet. There were hammocks, too, but James thought neither of them were mental enough to try climbing into what basically amounted to a large net bag hung from a big stick.

He'd worried that they would get bored during their two weeks self-induced isolation, irritable without internet or loud water-based vehicles or electricity. But somehow they fell into sync with each other instead. They'd brought books and paper and spent large portions of the day reading or writing on the beach. Jeremy didn't say what he was writing and James didn't ask, but it was plainly something more than newspaper columns or scripts for the last _Grand Tour_ series that was only half-filmed. Sometimes he'd ask James a question (logistical or philosophical or 'which of these modes of murdering someone would be the most flamboyant?') and they'd discuss a topic at length, though James never quite knew how it was all connected, if it even was. Sometimes James would recite a bit of poetry and Jeremy humored him enough to listen.

They made love, too – not as often as they had during those first frantic nights in Venice, not as wild, but no less passionate for that. Mostly during the day it was too hot so they had sex in the water or waited until night had fallen. There were so many stars, like waves of light glittering across the sky, and sometimes they'd lie together on the beach counting them, creating their own constellations. Then Jeremy would roll over and slide down and take James in his mouth, like as not, suck him off with aching slowness until he was gasping and groaning, until new stars formed themselves behind his eyes and shivered down through his skin. 

Neither of them talked about what would happen when they got back – they'd talked it all out already, months ago. Maybe next year they'd holiday at home in Britain. More likely they'd find they never got any peace doing it that way, so it would be away again, to Greece or South Africa. But whatever happened, they would have this again, somehow. They would have each other.


End file.
